Yeah, if there are any complaints to be levied at Wastland 2/inExile (and there are very few), it's that the production values for Wasteland 2 were very low. Most people ignored it because of the fact that it was; 1. A Kickstarter funded game and 2. The game was still amazing regardless, but it still looked/felt like something I should've been playing in 2003-2005ish. It did help give it a somewhat "oldschool" vibe/feel, but I don't think it was intentional and it's still my largest "complaint" about the game.
I am thoroughly enjoying the game so far, even though I ended up restarting about an hour in.
1st group, I made a Death Godborn Wizard. Was not aware that the first NPC companion you can get is a Wizard. So I ended up 'recruiting' someone from the Inn. Made a Barbarian. Every battle was a nightmare on Hard. Had to kite, Barbarian would go down like a wet sock and the wizards in the breeze made by his falling.
2nd group, a Human Paladin. Made a Dwarf Rogue. Picked up the NPC Wizard. Wrecking face.
Completed the temple in town, got a flail that restores endurance on hit. Combined with the shield you get for completing the Blacksmith's quest...
and my Paladin can tank for what feels like ever. Only issue I have run into are Forest Lurkers (which have massive HP/Defenses) and Shadows, which like to teleport to my Wizard. Rogue is using a Fine Longsword and a Fine Rapier against enemies with low DT and a Crossbow against those with higher. Works well so far, particularly if I use the Rogue to sneak up, pop someone with a Sneak Shot from the crossbow, then kite them back to the Paladin/Wizard.
Really enjoying it so far! Only major gripe is the loading screens everywhere and how long they take.
I am thoroughly enjoying the game so far, even though I ended up restarting about an hour in.
1st group, I made a Death Godborn Wizard. Was not aware that the first NPC companion you can get is a Wizard. So I ended up 'recruiting' someone from the Inn. Made a Barbarian. Every battle was a nightmare on Hard. Had to kite, Barbarian would go down like a wet sock and the wizards in the breeze made by his falling.
2nd group, a Human Paladin. Made a Dwarf Rogue. Picked up the NPC Wizard. Wrecking face.
Completed the temple in town, got a flail that restores endurance on hit. Combined with the shield you get for completing the Blacksmith's quest...
and my Paladin can tank for what feels like ever. Only issue I have run into are Forest Lurkers (which have massive HP/Defenses) and Shadows, which like to teleport to my Wizard. Rogue is using a Fine Longsword and a Fine Rapier against enemies with low DT and a Crossbow against those with higher. Works well so far, particularly if I use the Rogue to sneak up, pop someone with a Sneak Shot from the crossbow, then kite them back to the Paladin/Wizard.
Really enjoying it so far! Only major gripe is the loading screens everywhere and how long they take.
Yeah, the loading screens was one of my minor complaints about the game; especially when you get into act II in Defiance Bay and you're bouncing all around the different districts. I never made a rogue. I think if I play through the game again I might try that class. The druid is badass. The Cipher is pretty sweet as well; although they go down pretty fast in melee.
Some interesting, depressing(?), stats. The article's on completing games in general but talks about PoE in particular.
Just 6.4% of players who have bought role-playing adventure Pillars of Eternity have actually completed it, according to the PC gaming service, Steam.
Does it matter that people don't finish games anymore? Because they do not. Apparently only 15% finished Alien Isolation. Deus Ex: Human revolution stands at about 25%; while Bioshock manages a more respectable 35.9%. With Bungie's online shooter Destiny, there's a large percentage who have never actually played the game co-operatively, or seen the end game content - and only 15% have completed a raid.
I don't know that not finishing games is a new phenomenon. But there are certainly a lot of games that people do finish. Coincidentally, I was looking at completion numbers the other day (achievement tracking makes this easy). Some of the games I looked at were Bioshock Infinite ~50% completion, Dark Souls 2 37%, and Divinity: Original Sin 5%.
I was curious if there was a relationship between quality and completion rates or hours of gameplay or anything really. Ultimately I couldn't make a connection.
Edit: Steam has DS2 Scholar of the First Sin is at 20% completion. That's a little surprising to me as I would've thought only enthusiasts would pick it up (and therefore higher completion rates).
New Features
You can now rename save games.
You can now change the portrait and sound set of characters from the character sheet. Click on the gear icon to open the customization window. You can only use this feature on player characters and hired (non-companion) characters.
New Stash sorting. You can now sort stash by item type, enchant score, and sell value.
Added a news feature on the main menu to keep you informed on patches and Kickstarter updates.
Added a new color for unique items in the inventory.
Added a new hotkey for switching weapon sets on selected characters.
You can now bind extra mouse buttons to Ability hotkeys.
There's a new option in the Difficulty settings to reset newly recruited companions to level 1 (without losing the experience) when they get added to the party for the first time. This will allow you to level up companions to your liking.
Balance
Reblanced XP rewards of some quests, particularly the bounty quests, to prevent parties from hitting max level before Twin Elms.
Ciphers now start with 1/4 max Focus instead of 1/2.
Wizard and Cipher's base endurance has been raised from 30 to 36, and per level from 10 to 12.
Wizard and Priests health multipliers were raised from 3 to 4.
Interdiction range has been reduced from 20 to 10.
Tuned down damage on the Retaliation mod.
Citzal's Spirit Lance will now do 50% more damage, is faster, and has an increased AoE.
Sanguine Plate's Retaliate mod has been replaced with Spell Holding: Frenzy.
Wind Blight's Returning Storm is now set to 1/encounter.
Earth Blight's Teleport ability is now set to 2/encounter.
Sturdy bonus is improved from +20 to +30 vs Prone.
Hand and Key's Preservation has been replaced with Loyal.
Aru Breaker's Preservation has been replaced with a +1 Speed.
Angio's Gambeson's Reflex bonus is replaced with 1/day Deleterious Alacrity of Motion.
Rebel's Call Preservation has been replaced with Wary.
Lightning Strikes damage is increased by 25%.
Fan of Flames damage is reduced by 25%.
Minor Arcane Reflection base duration is changed to 60 seconds.
Llengrath's Displaced Image gives 50% hit to graze conversion on Deflection and Reflex.
Wizard's Double now grants +40 Deflection against a single attack.
Mirrored Images now grants a base +30 Deflection. It decreases by 5 after each hit.
Ilengrath's Safeguard's bonuses are now unified.
Crucible of the Soul, Speaker to the Restless, and Steps to the Wheel ranges have been increased.
Arcane Veil now grants +50 Deflection, with Hardened Veil adding +25, for a total of +75 Deflection.
Scroll of Paralysis is now slightly weaker and has a higher skill requirement.
All Spell Holdings are 2/encounter.
Soul Shock radius reduced from 2.5 to 1.25.
Blizzard damage reduced significantly and attack speed increased to from 0.2 to 0.8.
Overwhelming Wave now uses a range of 30-40 and stun duration lowered from 10s to 8s.
Noxious Burst trap damage now is in line with other player trap damage.
Reduced the accuracy on higher level player traps.
Unbroken is now a per encounter ability.
Malignant Cloud damage increased.
Ghost Blades set to foe only.
Death Ring damage slightly raised, made foe only.
Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar switched over to foe only.
Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon set to foe only.
Stag's Horn damaged lowered. Reflex and Deflection penalties cut in half, and reduced duration from 15 to 10.
Bracers of Spiritual Power and Archer's Gloves reduced damage from +20% to +10%.
Scroll of Revival AoE reduced, range slightly reduced, and restored endurance halved.
Marked Prey and Sworn Enemy have been set to 0 recovery actions, so they can be used and the Ranger/Paladin can immediately act again.
Winter Wind has had its damage, range, and push decreased. Base interrupt has been increased.
Vile Thorns has had its damage increased and range decreased.
Petrified damage bonus changed from x4 to x2.
Items, Spells, and Abilities
Many spells and abilities will have more accurate and updated stat blocks and improved output in the combat log, tooltips, and character sheet.
Modal abilities now have activation and deactivation timers.
Fixed an issue where some AOE attacks were not displaying the extra Intellect bonus properly.
Added new effect when petrified.
A character does not need to be in Stealth/Search mode to detect traps that are 4 Mechanics difficulties lower that the skill score. The detection will happen automatically now.
Added an animation to the Fox and the Hunter ability and removed the damage effect.
Second Chance will no longer trigger the defeat screen if the entire party goes down right before the effect fires.
Fixed display of the cast UI for Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept.
Tuning Wheel's effect is not hostile anymore.
Painful Interdiction is now correctly marked as hostile.
Escape should now always prevent disengagement attacks.
Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept will no longer attack allies.
Barbarian Threatening Presence will no longer spam the combat log when the Barbarian loses all endurance.
NPC Chanters will now resume chanting once they use their invocations.
Getting maimed will not clear fatigue.
All wall spells should now disappear when combat ends.
New Glossary entries for spellbind, spell holding, and spell striking.
Switched the ingredients for Freezing and Shocking lashes.
Druid's Wildstrike Belt is now working as intended.
Marked Prey is now working at intended.
Draining Whip is now working as intended.
One Stands Alone is now working as intended.
Interrupting Blows is now working as intended, and will correctly increase interrupt.
Mortification of the Soul is now working as intended, and should only award 1 wound.
Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay, Secrets of the Rime and Heart of the Storm should now correctly increase damage of all abilities.
Driving Flight will now work properly with Blunderbuss type guns.
The Retaliate mod should not strike allies after using Field Triage.
Pet fatigue has been removed.
About 30 item icons have been updated, including some backer items, such as the Hermit's Hat.
Battle-forged status effect now ends when combat ends. This should prevent it from stacking because of save/load.
Fix for Elusive Quarry so its status effects now end when combat ends. This should prevent it from stacking because of save/load.
Wild Leech is now combat only and the Leech effect will last until combat ends. This fixes issues with it not working with save/load correctly.
Fix to Total Max Focus stat that would reset to the base value if you had the Greater Focus talent after a save/load. This is a retroactive fix that will restore your Cipher with an extra +10 focus if you have the talent.
More fixes to status effect suppression so it will be more foolproof.
Quests and Companions
Party member stats on the character sheet will now show properly if the companion is removed and re-added from the stronghold.
Fixed issues where companions could lose their items when assigned to the stronghold.
Grieving Mother's Perception and Intellect scores have been switched.
The Man Who Waits: The citizens of the Sanitarium will no longer become hostile if you kill and loot Azo after the Sanitarium riot and then fight flesh golems. Fix is retroactive.
Fixed issue with a reputation loss with Gilded Vale when entering Raedric's Hold.
Removed disposition exploit with the Records Keeper.
A few encounter placement changes.
Fixed issues with stronghold hirelings becoming hostile.
Retroactive fix to update Sanitarium quest stage to proper state if you already talked to Ethelmoer and then asked for Sanitarium directions from a city guard.
Added retroactive fix if you've advanced Heritage Hill quest to Icantha but then asked a city guard for directions to Heritage Hill.
Fixed a number of issues with the Winds of Steel quest. This should be a retroactive fix if the quest was already started before working on the second quest with the Dozens or Doemenels, or if the quest was acquired or completed in conjunction with Bronze Beneath the Lake or Changing of the Guard.
Attacking any of the main three Defiance Bay factions after having secured their invitation to the hearing will now make Lady Webb give you an invite in the name of Dunryd Row.
Fixed issues with the Hermit of Hadret House quest.
If Sul or Oernos were defeated before speaking to Desthwn for the first time then The Old Queen and the New King quest will not revert to an earlier quest stage
Hendyna's conversation is fixed up to be properly linked together.
Fixed a case where one of Clyver's responses would not appear in conversation if you ask him twice about the hearing.
Killing Alwah while she appears in Oldsong now prevents her from appearing alive in Galawain's Maw when you turn in the Prison of Ice quest
Fixed an issue where the Hall of Revealed Mysteries would turn hostile after opening the door to the Elder Archives and then re-loading into the scene (while not in stealth).
Rinatto will no longer appear in the Celestial Sapling if you convince him to leave Twin Elms as part of the Hard Bargain quest.)
Fixed the top floor of the Sanitarium so "The Man Who Waits" quest is now working for those that were having problems.
UI
Changed the display of most stat multipliers to be percentage based.
Added Shift as a default control for multi-selection, in addition to Ctrl.
Inverted the Stronghold log.
Improved the output in the Bestiary and added beast abilities.
Portraits now turn grey if Stamina is being capped by Health or Fatigue.
Improved multi-selection.
Stronghold adventures will now show the duration before you embark.
Added apply button to resolution options screen.
Default stealth key on Linux is now Ctrl.
Weapon set buttons are now disabled when Spirit Shifted.
Fixed several issues with containers and mouse cursor state on hover.
Fixed an issue where the Lore requirement on scrolls was always displaying as red text.
Fixed an issue where weapon sets were not visually unlocking.
HUD does not upscale until 1920x1200.
Adjusted position of the Concentration skill in the Character Sheet.
Cleaned up problems with improper ability icons showing if you switch party members with hotkeys.
Corrected a tooltip string on the voice volume slider.
Fixed issues with tooltips being obscured in the inventory screen.
Fixed a problem with Stronghold prisoners showing temp text at times.
Improved loading screen scaling for resolutions greater than 1920 x 1080
Tooltips now include sell price where appropriate.
Chanter inspection UI should now display the correct durations.
Armors should now correctly display DR in the inspection UI.
Fixed attack roll formula tooltips so they should now be readable in lower screen resolutions.
Weapon sets should now show the proper weapon rarity coloring.
Expert mode is now hidden on the main menu to avoid confusion about it not being selectable outside of a game.
Changed slider bars so that they can slide the entire length of the options menu.
Changed the order of the option buttons to make them more user-friendly.
General Fixes
Removed exploit of being able to transition into a new area with a dead player character. Sorry speed runners.
Spells and abilities stuck in 'Already Activated' state will be fixed whenever a game is loaded.
Now camping in a stronghold map when Brighthollow is unlocked uses Brighthollow instead.
Party members will no longer switch weapon sets when charmed.
Resolved a problem where misses on some secondary attacks were not being reported in the combat log.
Camera should center on party members faster.
Trial of Iron: Loading a game will now force a save to happen to prevent save scumming.
Fixed many issues related to auto pause.
Firearms will now reload when combat ends on alternate weapon sets.
Poison and interrupted VO now has a cooldown.
Allow quick-loading when UI windows, like dialogue, are up.
Fix to enemy encounters sometimes decreasing in difficulty without the player changing the option.
Fixed additional problems with prestigious visitors visiting the Stronghold after they had been killed.
Fixed issue where Guest Hirelings that were available at the Stronghold for hire were not being saved properly into the save games.
Removed unneeded navigation blockers in the Valewood that were causing animal companions to become stuck.
Loving the grieving mother change and being able to set recruited companions to level 1, so no more "Gotta recruit X before level Y or they pick butthole talents"
New Features
You can now rename save games.
You can now change the portrait and sound set of characters from the character sheet. Click on the gear icon to open the customization window. You can only use this feature on player characters and hired (non-companion) characters.
New Stash sorting. You can now sort stash by item type, enchant score, and sell value.
Added a news feature on the main menu to keep you informed on patches and Kickstarter updates.
Added a new color for unique items in the inventory.
Added a new hotkey for switching weapon sets on selected characters.
You can now bind extra mouse buttons to Ability hotkeys.
There's a new option in the Difficulty settings to reset newly recruited companions to level 1 (without losing the experience) when they get added to the party for the first time. This will allow you to level up companions to your liking.
Balance
Reblanced XP rewards of some quests, particularly the bounty quests, to prevent parties from hitting max level before Twin Elms.
Ciphers now start with 1/4 max Focus instead of 1/2.
Wizard and Cipher's base endurance has been raised from 30 to 36, and per level from 10 to 12.
Wizard and Priests health multipliers were raised from 3 to 4.
Interdiction range has been reduced from 20 to 10.
Tuned down damage on the Retaliation mod.
Citzal's Spirit Lance will now do 50% more damage, is faster, and has an increased AoE.
Sanguine Plate's Retaliate mod has been replaced with Spell Holding: Frenzy.
Wind Blight's Returning Storm is now set to 1/encounter.
Earth Blight's Teleport ability is now set to 2/encounter.
Sturdy bonus is improved from +20 to +30 vs Prone.
Hand and Key's Preservation has been replaced with Loyal.
Aru Breaker's Preservation has been replaced with a +1 Speed.
Angio's Gambeson's Reflex bonus is replaced with 1/day Deleterious Alacrity of Motion.
Rebel's Call Preservation has been replaced with Wary.
Lightning Strikes damage is increased by 25%.
Fan of Flames damage is reduced by 25%.
Minor Arcane Reflection base duration is changed to 60 seconds.
Llengrath's Displaced Image gives 50% hit to graze conversion on Deflection and Reflex.
Wizard's Double now grants +40 Deflection against a single attack.
Mirrored Images now grants a base +30 Deflection. It decreases by 5 after each hit.
Ilengrath's Safeguard's bonuses are now unified.
Crucible of the Soul, Speaker to the Restless, and Steps to the Wheel ranges have been increased.
Arcane Veil now grants +50 Deflection, with Hardened Veil adding +25, for a total of +75 Deflection.
Scroll of Paralysis is now slightly weaker and has a higher skill requirement.
All Spell Holdings are 2/encounter.
Soul Shock radius reduced from 2.5 to 1.25.
Blizzard damage reduced significantly and attack speed increased to from 0.2 to 0.8.
Overwhelming Wave now uses a range of 30-40 and stun duration lowered from 10s to 8s.
Noxious Burst trap damage now is in line with other player trap damage.
Reduced the accuracy on higher level player traps.
Unbroken is now a per encounter ability.
Malignant Cloud damage increased.
Ghost Blades set to foe only.
Death Ring damage slightly raised, made foe only.
Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar switched over to foe only.
Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon set to foe only.
Stag's Horn damaged lowered. Reflex and Deflection penalties cut in half, and reduced duration from 15 to 10.
Bracers of Spiritual Power and Archer's Gloves reduced damage from +20% to +10%.
Scroll of Revival AoE reduced, range slightly reduced, and restored endurance halved.
Marked Prey and Sworn Enemy have been set to 0 recovery actions, so they can be used and the Ranger/Paladin can immediately act again.
Winter Wind has had its damage, range, and push decreased. Base interrupt has been increased.
Vile Thorns has had its damage increased and range decreased.
Petrified damage bonus changed from x4 to x2.
Items, Spells, and Abilities
Many spells and abilities will have more accurate and updated stat blocks and improved output in the combat log, tooltips, and character sheet.
Modal abilities now have activation and deactivation timers.
Fixed an issue where some AOE attacks were not displaying the extra Intellect bonus properly.
Added new effect when petrified.
A character does not need to be in Stealth/Search mode to detect traps that are 4 Mechanics difficulties lower that the skill score. The detection will happen automatically now.
Added an animation to the Fox and the Hunter ability and removed the damage effect.
Second Chance will no longer trigger the defeat screen if the entire party goes down right before the effect fires.
Fixed display of the cast UI for Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept.
Tuning Wheel's effect is not hostile anymore.
Painful Interdiction is now correctly marked as hostile.
Escape should now always prevent disengagement attacks.
Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept will no longer attack allies.
Barbarian Threatening Presence will no longer spam the combat log when the Barbarian loses all endurance.
NPC Chanters will now resume chanting once they use their invocations.
Getting maimed will not clear fatigue.
All wall spells should now disappear when combat ends.
New Glossary entries for spellbind, spell holding, and spell striking.
Switched the ingredients for Freezing and Shocking lashes.
Druid's Wildstrike Belt is now working as intended.
Marked Prey is now working at intended.
Draining Whip is now working as intended.
One Stands Alone is now working as intended.
Interrupting Blows is now working as intended, and will correctly increase interrupt.
Mortification of the Soul is now working as intended, and should only award 1 wound.
Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay, Secrets of the Rime and Heart of the Storm should now correctly increase damage of all abilities.
Driving Flight will now work properly with Blunderbuss type guns.
The Retaliate mod should not strike allies after using Field Triage.
Pet fatigue has been removed.
About 30 item icons have been updated, including some backer items, such as the Hermit's Hat.
Battle-forged status effect now ends when combat ends. This should prevent it from stacking because of save/load.
Fix for Elusive Quarry so its status effects now end when combat ends. This should prevent it from stacking because of save/load.
Wild Leech is now combat only and the Leech effect will last until combat ends. This fixes issues with it not working with save/load correctly.
Fix to Total Max Focus stat that would reset to the base value if you had the Greater Focus talent after a save/load. This is a retroactive fix that will restore your Cipher with an extra +10 focus if you have the talent.
More fixes to status effect suppression so it will be more foolproof.
Quests and Companions
Party member stats on the character sheet will now show properly if the companion is removed and re-added from the stronghold.
Fixed issues where companions could lose their items when assigned to the stronghold.
Grieving Mother's Perception and Intellect scores have been switched.
The Man Who Waits: The citizens of the Sanitarium will no longer become hostile if you kill and loot Azo after the Sanitarium riot and then fight flesh golems. Fix is retroactive.
Fixed issue with a reputation loss with Gilded Vale when entering Raedric's Hold.
Removed disposition exploit with the Records Keeper.
A few encounter placement changes.
Fixed issues with stronghold hirelings becoming hostile.
Retroactive fix to update Sanitarium quest stage to proper state if you already talked to Ethelmoer and then asked for Sanitarium directions from a city guard.
Added retroactive fix if you've advanced Heritage Hill quest to Icantha but then asked a city guard for directions to Heritage Hill.
Fixed a number of issues with the Winds of Steel quest. This should be a retroactive fix if the quest was already started before working on the second quest with the Dozens or Doemenels, or if the quest was acquired or completed in conjunction with Bronze Beneath the Lake or Changing of the Guard.
Attacking any of the main three Defiance Bay factions after having secured their invitation to the hearing will now make Lady Webb give you an invite in the name of Dunryd Row.
Fixed issues with the Hermit of Hadret House quest.
If Sul or Oernos were defeated before speaking to Desthwn for the first time then The Old Queen and the New King quest will not revert to an earlier quest stage
Hendyna's conversation is fixed up to be properly linked together.
Fixed a case where one of Clyver's responses would not appear in conversation if you ask him twice about the hearing.
Killing Alwah while she appears in Oldsong now prevents her from appearing alive in Galawain's Maw when you turn in the Prison of Ice quest
Fixed an issue where the Hall of Revealed Mysteries would turn hostile after opening the door to the Elder Archives and then re-loading into the scene (while not in stealth).
Rinatto will no longer appear in the Celestial Sapling if you convince him to leave Twin Elms as part of the Hard Bargain quest.)
Fixed the top floor of the Sanitarium so "The Man Who Waits" quest is now working for those that were having problems.
UI
Changed the display of most stat multipliers to be percentage based.
Added Shift as a default control for multi-selection, in addition to Ctrl.
Inverted the Stronghold log.
Improved the output in the Bestiary and added beast abilities.
Portraits now turn grey if Stamina is being capped by Health or Fatigue.
Improved multi-selection.
Stronghold adventures will now show the duration before you embark.
Added apply button to resolution options screen.
Default stealth key on Linux is now Ctrl.
Weapon set buttons are now disabled when Spirit Shifted.
Fixed several issues with containers and mouse cursor state on hover.
Fixed an issue where the Lore requirement on scrolls was always displaying as red text.
Fixed an issue where weapon sets were not visually unlocking.
HUD does not upscale until 1920x1200.
Adjusted position of the Concentration skill in the Character Sheet.
Cleaned up problems with improper ability icons showing if you switch party members with hotkeys.
Corrected a tooltip string on the voice volume slider.
Fixed issues with tooltips being obscured in the inventory screen.
Fixed a problem with Stronghold prisoners showing temp text at times.
Improved loading screen scaling for resolutions greater than 1920 x 1080
Tooltips now include sell price where appropriate.
Chanter inspection UI should now display the correct durations.
Armors should now correctly display DR in the inspection UI.
Fixed attack roll formula tooltips so they should now be readable in lower screen resolutions.
Weapon sets should now show the proper weapon rarity coloring.
Expert mode is now hidden on the main menu to avoid confusion about it not being selectable outside of a game.
Changed slider bars so that they can slide the entire length of the options menu.
Changed the order of the option buttons to make them more user-friendly.
General Fixes
Removed exploit of being able to transition into a new area with a dead player character. Sorry speed runners.
Spells and abilities stuck in 'Already Activated' state will be fixed whenever a game is loaded.
Now camping in a stronghold map when Brighthollow is unlocked uses Brighthollow instead.
Party members will no longer switch weapon sets when charmed.
Resolved a problem where misses on some secondary attacks were not being reported in the combat log.
Camera should center on party members faster.
Trial of Iron: Loading a game will now force a save to happen to prevent save scumming.
Fixed many issues related to auto pause.
Firearms will now reload when combat ends on alternate weapon sets.
Poison and interrupted VO now has a cooldown.
Allow quick-loading when UI windows, like dialogue, are up.
Fix to enemy encounters sometimes decreasing in difficulty without the player changing the option.
Fixed additional problems with prestigious visitors visiting the Stronghold after they had been killed.
Fixed issue where Guest Hirelings that were available at the Stronghold for hire were not being saved properly into the save games.
Removed unneeded navigation blockers in the Valewood that were causing animal companions to become stuck.
Loving the grieving mother change and being able to set recruited companions to level 1, so no more "Gotta recruit X before level Y or they pick butthole talents"
I'm not sure those completion stats have anything to do with anything. I have 5 friends who are playing other games but kickstarted this. They downloaded the game but have yet to actually play it.
P.S. - Fuck the dragon if you are not running some min/max party. Finally tried him a couple times with my shit party of random toons I like and got demolished. Time to grab some rando's from the inn and wipe the floor with him.
I'm not sure those completion stats have anything to do with anything. I have 5 friends who are playing other games but kickstarted this. They downloaded the game but have yet to actually play it.
P.S. - Fuck the dragon if you are not running some min/max party. Finally tried him a couple times with my shit party of random toons I like and got demolished. Time to grab some rando's from the inn and wipe the floor with him.
That's a fair point. I guess for a better idea you'd need to take the percentage of the easiest achievement vs the completion achievement since presumably achievement percentages are based off of the number of games owned; thanks to steam sales, many people may have bought a game and never even installed it.
...without having to resort to priest Ward cheese. Used my usual group (Player: Paladin - Absurd defense build (At around 124 without Buffs), Player: Rogue (Arbalest/Ranged Build), NPC Priest, Chanter, Cipher, Mage). Used all of the various summoning items in the game, chain spammed Wurms/Drakes via the Chanter, the energy clone with the Mage, and debuffed with the Cipher/Priest. Took six tries.
The ludicrous amount of loading screens in Act 2 and 3 are killing this game for me.
If it were smoother, would be an easy 8/10. With them, probably a 5/10. Would not recommend unless you like spending a good 1/5th of the game looking at the loading screens.
EDIT: For the record, the screens on my system (with an SSD) are only 3-5 seconds each. But when you have to hit 2+ (highest so far was six) of them for almost every side quest, it adds up quickly.
The ludicrous amount of loading screens in Act 2 and 3 are killing this game for me.
If it were smoother, would be an easy 8/10. With them, probably a 5/10. Would not recommend unless you like spending a good 1/5th of the game looking at the loading screens.
EDIT: For the record, the screens on my system (with an SSD) are only 3-5 seconds each. But when you have to hit 2+ (highest so far was six) of them for almost every side quest, it adds up quickly.
I'm hoping with the success of this one that they're able to roll out another one with a bigger budget. There's obviously still a market for these types of games. I'm actually playing it through a second time. It's far from perfect, but it's a lot better than most of the stuff that's currently out there. The loading screens suck, the story is romance novel bad, but there is still a pretty solid game underneath it all. My biggest complaint is the AI. Having to pause the combat every four seconds to make sure the idiots do what I what them to do is frustrating as hell. That, and they put too much of an emphasis on the AoE. In most of the big fights if your mage/druid go down, you're fucked.
They need a game that has it's own engine and not the crappy Unity engine.
If you have not played it, I highly recommend Divinity: Original Sin. Same vein of game, better graphics, loading times, combat system, etcetcetc. (Though Pillars seems to have a deeper/more fleshed out lore)
I've played the game a good 50 hours now, I quite like it but I actually feel its cRPG roots are mostly what is holding it back. They should cast off those outdated core systems and just make a really good pausable real-time tactics game with exploration, story, and progression systems.
To explain what I mean, I think they did they best they could have with old school RPG mechanics, but if anything Pillars showed just how uninteresting those really are. The core combat, the tactics of a battle, is basic to the point of totally uninteresting and relies utterly on "decisions" (I use the term loosely here) made outside of combat. The difficulty slider's only actual effect on the game is how much you need to min-max characters, which is also supremely basic.
Might & Dex for damage dealers/healers, tank stats for the rest, combat is nothing but tank & spank. There is a little play in there depending on the difficulty setting, but really your only decision is "how much do I want to gimp my party?"
The game does a good job in other areas, but I keep finding myself wondering how much better it could be if they built a tactics game with behaviors and AI first, then constructed the other elements around it. There is nothing preventing a tactics game from having content structured like a cRPG with exploration, recruitment, quests, and dialogue interaction other than tradition. I say we do away with traditions that don't work in favor of better games.
